Sustainability and Carbon Emissions of Future Accelerators

Abstract

Future accelerators and experiments for energy-frontier particle physics will be built and operated during a period in which society must also address the climate change emergency by significantly reducing emissions of carbon dioxide. The carbon intensity of many particle physics activities is potentially significant, such that as a community particle physicists could create substantially more emissions compared to the amount created by average citizens, which is itself currently more than budgeted to limit the increase in average global temperatures. We estimate the carbon impacts of potential future accelerators, detectors, computing, and travel, and find that while emissions from civil construction dominate by far, some other activities make noticeable contributions. We discuss potential mitigation strategies as well as research and development activities that can be pursued to make particle physics more sustainable.